Sergipe, 8/25/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The São Francisco River flows right past the front yard of the house. It is not much of a flow, thanks to the Xingó hydroelectric power plant just down the river. And in the backyard, there is the Angicos cave where Brazil's most famous backlands bandit, Lampião, his girlfriend, Maria Bonita, and nine other bandits (cangaceiros) were massacred by the authorities. That happened in 1938 - also known as the year of the .38 caliber gun. Inside the house, Gilda Correia Nunes, 58, mother of 12, whips up a fine meal topped off with local seasoning: memories of hard times and drought.
From nettles, a coarse herb, she makes a salad to go with the fish, a surubim, almost a threatened species nowadays in "Old Chico" (as the São Francisco River is known). From senna bushes, a leguminous herb, she makes a jelly. "Here in this desert we have to use everything that can be used. I learned this from my mother. She learned from her mother. And my daughters are already better than me," explains Gilda.
One of the daughters is Luiza. With a sharp knife she removes thorns from a cactus with the agility of sushi-man slicing fish. Once the thorns are gone the cactus can be crushed into a watery mush and turned into a delicious sweet paste. The cactus is a local cactus, known as Monk's head (it is round, full of dangerous spines, with a red bulb on top). "Many people have slacked their thirst with these plants when the going got really rough," she says. "Goats will crush the red bulb on the Monk's Head cactus with their hoofs, opening it up so they can drink. God knows what He does."
The cactus dessert is a natural for making people forget things like diets. It is similar, but better than, green papaya dessert. Besides, the truth is that in spite of the onslaught of "foreign" beauty standards, piped in via TV, what the real backlander appreciates, whether she be brunette or blonde, is a "strong" girl, one that is full-blooded, plump and generously curvaceous.
As for the men, it is believed they should also be chubby, the better to hide their skeletons and smooth over sharp bones. Besides, pudgy, roly-poly men, with at least a slight potbelly and full cheeks, are well known to be the best dance partners.
"Nowadays, down in the capital, the rage is for everyone to look like a necktie, dried-up thin, all bone. Why, the girls look like drought-stricken backland cows, bony knees, no meat, why, what are we coming to?" asks Gilda. "You know, some of those girls are little more than a trace of a person. And some of them are rich. Why, they have money. They could eat as much as they want. It is hard to understand."
In a way, the backland fascination with a little extra body fat, seeing it as a sign of bonanza, is estethic revenge for the memory of hardscrabble caatinga hunger.
But in Gilda's restaurant, called the Angicos, although there is no sign saying so, the dried up girls from the big city will have to make do with backland fish and salad. Lots of it. "You better tell them right off that it is bad manners around here to eat like a bird," warns Gilda. "Around here we like people to eat as if the end of the world was about to happen."
And after dessert, after the Monk's head cactus delicacy, there are hammocks under mango trees. Fit for the siesta of a king. (AB)
